


i couldn't utter my love when it counted

by Mici (noharlembeat)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, F/M, Multi, Niall Lynch is his own warning, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Threesome - F/M/M, non-linear timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/Mici
Summary: The day that Declan meets Richard Campbell Gansey the III is the first day of sophomore year, and he is a freshman sitting at orientation, looking both thoughtful, boyish, and lost. Dr. Copter, the school guidance counselor, brings Declan over and sits him down next to him, and says without any preamble at all, “Mr. Gansey, this is Declan Lynch, and he’s going to be your student proctor.It was all uphill, then downhill, then uphill from there.And then there was Blue.





	i couldn't utter my love when it counted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenRiza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenRiza/gifts).



> This fic is unbetaed! Forgiveness is requested.

The day that Declan meets Richard Campbell Gansey the III is the first day of sophomore year, and he is a freshman sitting at orientation, looking both thoughtful, boyish, and lost. Dr. Copter, the school guidance counselor, brings Declan over and sits him down next to him, and says without any preamble at all, “Mr. Gansey, this is Declan Lynch, and he’s going to be your student proctor.”

Gansey has the wherewithal to look alarmed, and Declan finds himself smiling; not the Lynch smile that he knows from practice with townie girls can disarm and destroy, but instead a genuine, real smile. His Lynch smile is a weapon to be handled with care. His father taught him that. “It’s not what it sounds like,” Declan said, sitting down, and extending his hand. “This school wants everything to sound so formal, so they misuse words in an attempt to sound more pretentious.”

Gansey visibly relaxes, his shoulders untensing, his smile softening to echo Declan’s own. “Well,” he says, and Declan can’t help it, his accent is so _bizarre_ , like some old fashioned plantation owner, “that really shouldn’t surprise me at all.”

And those words, simple, and careful, and boyish, they do more damage than Declan’s smile could ever manage. It’s an odd thing, realizing that the golden image of boyhood perfection is sitting in front of you in a pair of boating shoes and a uniform that everyone at this school loves to hate, but Declan realizes it sharply, suddenly. 

They spend that day in carefully coded conversation, eluding the nastier facts of the Aglionby experience (facts that include disgruntled townies, a vague plantation history, and that despite it being September the temperature in Henrietta won’t dip into any realm where the raven boy blazer is even vaguely comfortable until well into December) and instead, playing the game of trying to suss out how rich the other is without ever being so gauche as to say the word _millions_.

Declan is very, very good at this game. Declan has the soul of old money in the packaging of new, familiar to the core of him with how to speak through both sides of his mouth. His mother calls it the Irish tongue. His father calls it nothing, because nothing that Declan can do can impress his father. 

But it turns out that Gansey is better at this game than Declan, because he doesn’t give anything away, not until Declan asks if he needs him to show him back to his dorm, and Gansey looks alarmed, confused, and shakes his head. “No,” he tells him, easily. “I bought a, well.” he stops, as if he’s _embarrassed_ at the purchase of real estate. Maybe because buying anything in Henrietta is, by definition, humiliating. “Do you want to see it?” Gansey asks, shyly, but excited, and Declan can’t help but say yes.

So Declan drives them down into down, all the way to the strip of sad businesses and raggedy diners, past St. Agnes, past all of that to the humble part of industrial Henrietta, where Gansey points out a behemoth with a parking lot that looks like it stepped out of the 1960s with all the survival instincts of a nuclear fallout. “I have never seen this place before,” Declan admits, and he’s gone to church here all his life. “You _live_ there?” he asks, but he’s surprised when the tone of his voice isn’t horror but _admiration._

Gansey practically beams. “Monmouth Manufacturing,” he says, proudly, and slips out of the car. “Do you want to come and see it?”

Declan follows him, confused, and impressed, as they climb the stairs. The room is massive, the clear lack of people apparent, and bare except for a bed in the middle of the room. It strikes Declan as the heart of a boy who doesn’t have any notion of _family._ It looks lonely.

It can’t be any lonelier, a nasty part of Declan’s brain insists, than living on that farm with a father who sees him as a commodity and a family that is magic. The odd man out. Declan pushes the self pity to the side.

“You know this is nuts, right?” Declan says, and he realizes he’s smiling. “I love it.”

Gansey beams. “Declan,” he asks, suddenly, as if he finally trusts him enough to say his name, instead of _Lynch_ , “what do you know about dead Welsh Kings?”

~~~~~

Orla was too old for him, but she realized he was some kind of sexual savant, and her vibrator needed new batteries. These were two out of three facts that Blue should not have known, from the second she saw his curly hair and his otherwise Lynch face in her house, she knew them. 

She knew them, incidentally, because Calla has no filter and Maura doesn’t think that it’s inappropriate to share these kinds of things, mostly because they are psychics and often forget (although how they could forget is entirely beyond Blue’s reckoning) that Blue doesn’t just know this kind of thing. But when Blue goes for her morning yogurt, she turns, and there he is, looking utterly baffled at the fact that he is in _her_ kitchen, _shirtless_ , and what?

Declan Lynch is shockingly attractive, shirtless, and it makes Blue angry. How dare he do this to her? Ronan is offensively repulsive, most of the time, when she can’t see the tender heart underneath the stained and crude veneer. He has all the charm of a skinhead dragon, and that helps, really, because it means that Blue has never, not once, looked at him and thought _he could be cute_. What Adam sees in him is obvious now, because he’s so much less repulsive in love, but he’s still so aggressively off-limits that Blue never looked past the raven boy arrogance to see-

-high cheekbones, thick eyelashes that most girls need glue to get, and those shocking blue eyes, not a pale blue like Adam’s (whose eyes, admittedly, Blue did spend a lot of time thinking about, back Before Gansey) but a dark, stormy blue, like the deepest part of a summer night. 

She thought that Gansey had good arms - he does, she amends in her head, even though she’s holding onto her yogurt and sputtering as he mutters something about _I can’t find my shirt_ , which is hopelessly pathetic for a Lynch - but Declan looks like he actually uses his body for something other than lifting heavy books. _Boxing_ , her brain handily reminds her. _Oh_ , she remembers, still trying to find words, _that’s right, that’s what the Lynches do to each other_. It’s aggressive to the point of ridiculous, suddenly, the jolt of pure animal attraction she feels. 

And it makes her even angrier, which doesn’t help when he ducks under the table and Calla passes by, looking for her own breakfast, that “Orla realized he was some kind of sexual savant, and her vibrator needs new batteries,” which makes Declan hit his head against the bottom of the table.

This seems utterly out of character for how smooth he naturally seems, when Blue catches sight of him with Ronan, always from a distance. It helps. Then Maura chimes in with, “Really, she’s too old for him,” and he looks up over the table, those heart-stopping blue eyes annoyed, his curls rumpled. “You’re too young for her,” Maura tells him, strictly in her own way, “even if you are a sexual savant.”

Declan pulls his shirt on, which was found under the table, dear, sweet, God, Blue _eats_ at that table and his mouth forms a line that on Ronan looks like some kind of deep, foreboding warning, and on Declan looks like displeasure. They have the same mouth. Blue cannot figure out how it’s so different, but it is. She looks over at Maura, who she loves, and thinks if they are all struck down by lightning at this moment, it will be a mercy. “What is wrong with you?” she asks.

“My room is under Orla’s,” she says, chilingly, and Declan has the sense that clearly God did not give Ronan, because he doesn’t say a word, but instead hustles out of the kitchen, and presumably, out of Blue’s life.

Orla comes down the stairs a moment later and takes an apple out of the fruit bowl that also holds the mail and a pile of old magazines. “Can you buy me some lug nuts?”

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Blue replies, because living with psychics is the strangest kind of chore.

But because Blue is fate’s bitch, nothing in the world can fall together so easily. Or rather, she’s being slapped around until fate puts her in the exact position it wants her, and right now, it wants her to sit on the slumpy hill outside of the school, waiting for Gansey, with the entire fucking girl’s cheerleading squad only a few feet away. Because Blue refuses to allow stereotypes to rule her, she’s actually friends - well no, not friends, friend _ly_ \- with most of them, and the ones she’s not friendly with she’s neutral about. They’re talking about stupid nothings, cute boys and school applications and some party that Blue is completely uninterested in, when there’s a silence that’s profound enough that it makes Blue look up.

Usually those kinds of silences means something, because people in Henrietta are interrupted only by two things - death, and raven boys, which means that it might entirely be Gansey showing up early, or Henry, showing up late, or-

-but because Blue is fate’s bitch, it’s Declan Lynch, on a Wednesday afternoon, parking his Volvo on the side of the road and getting out of the car. Gemma McClaine, who is the leader of the pack, is looking at him like he’s a ripe, juicy, dripping strawberry and she’s starved herself to be able to do those flips. She leans over and Blue hears her mutter, “I’d lay down in traffic if that one would look at me and smile.”

Blue tilts her head just a little, torn because half of her agrees, and half of her hates that a former raven boy can do this, even though she’s in love (love, love, love) with a _current_ raven boy, arguably, with the king raven boy. The raveniest boy of them all. 

Mila Caserta, second in command and the most friendly of them, who occasionally lets Blue look at her notes in Trig, mutters with a similar tone, “And his brother, have you seen him? Looks like he could burn the world down. Lord, they are so beautiful.”

Blue would like to choke on air but he doesn’t seem to manage. She looks over at Declan, who is jacking his car up, and suddenly remembers. She gets up from where she’s sitting, and hates herself for this. Declan is kneeling, pretty as a picture of an Irish saint. She clears her throat and when he looks up at her he looks so much like Ronan that Blue has to start, and then he doesn’t look like Ronan, because Ronan never looks at her _like that_. He looks annoyed, and Blue reaches into her bag and pulls out a set of lug nuts, and offers them to him.

He’s puzzled, it’s clear on his face, and he looks over to the ones he just removed from his car. He holds them in his palm, and perplexingly, in the nature of strange small things, one is missing. 

He doesn’t ask her how she knew. He just smiles, not a dazzling smile, not that smile that Gemma wants, but something far more honest, far more real. “Thank you,” he says, and doesn’t seem surprised at all.

Gansey pulls up a minute later. “Declan!” he says, thrilled, as Blue slips into the Pig. It grumbles as Gansey fumbles to get out. “What are you doing in town?”

“I needed to see the lawyer with Ronan,” he says, “and Ronan refuses to get a lawyer in D.C., so here I am.” He smiles, though, this time the smile that probably suggested to Orla that his mouth was the most brilliant sex toy that she could find outside of the internet.

“Well,” Gansey says, “Ronan is ah. At the Barns, I think. At least he was there thirty minutes ago when Adam left to meet him.” Blue snorts. Gansey has that rich person ability to say something absolutely embarrassing without saying anything at all. 

“They’re definitely sleeping together,” Blue volunteers over Gansey’s lap. “Like, probably right now,” she adds, and Gansey finally looks embarrassed, and Blue is completely unimpressed. 

Declan, to his credit, only sighs. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says, and presses his face into his hand. A stripe of grease suddenly appears on one high cheekbone, and Blue hears Gansey do this intake a breath that he only does-

-and Blue is staring, too. Jesus. Where did these Lynches come from? Sex hell? “All right,” Declan finally says. “Thank you,” he adds, carefully.

“We’ll see you soon,” Gansey offers with a smile, and Blue lifts a hand to wave as they drive off.

~~~~

The thing that Declan didn’t realize is that it would never last; it was all an accident in the first place. He realizes this the day after he and Gansey spend four hours on the floor of Monmouth with pizza and sodas that Gansey pays for, talking about Welsh kings and Irish myths and everything under the sun except their respective families and money. 

Those golden, shining hours in the dimming Henrietta daylight were perfect. Declan, never anyone’s favorite, was suddenly embraced, welcomed, by this young prince of Virginia, and it wasn’t because he was a Lynch or because he was anything but a good listener and funny and smart and talented in realms that any human could master. Declan was good at charm, and Gansey was susceptible.

That doesn’t end the next day, not exactly, but the first crack appears when Ronan, fighting his tie and clearly unhappy about being forced to leave the Barns, steps onto campus and Declan watches as his brother, his mirror, is approached by Gansey.

He watches this from across the lawn, watches as Ronan startles, and Gansey startles, because from a distance Ronan and Declan look alike, with wild curly hair and the same tall boxer body, similar faces and similar walks. Niall was good at designing things from the ground up, Declan thought bitterly. He designs land and dreams and sons. Of course Matthew is the only one that doesn’t match.

Declan approaches a clear minute later, but it’s too late. Ronan is smiling. _Ronan_ , who only smiled at the Barns, Ronan, who hated any time he had to step off the family land, Ronan, who had only two friends and both of them were his brothers is _smiling_ , laughing.

“You met Ronan,” Declan says with a smile. 

“You didn’t say you had a twin,” Gansey replies. His smile is like Ronan’s. It’s honest. 

It hurts. Falling out of favor. Declan is used to the pain of it. 

Ronan is, however, oblivious. “Irish twins,” he clarifies. “Hey man,” he says to Declan, and they bump knuckles, and Gansey watches this with a look in his eye that Declan recognizes as jealousy, the desire so plain and obvious that it makes Declan’s heart hurt. He knows that feeling, because it’s so often the refrain snarling in his own veins and clogging up his arteries. When he dies of a heart attack the doctor will open him up and stare in wonder at the pure desire coiled around the vibrant parts of his young heart.

And later, years later, Declan will look back on this moment. Because at this moment Sebastian Carrolton, fuckboy extraordinaire and student council president, calls Declan’s name, and Declan says, “hey, I have to go,” and he leaves Ronan and Gansey there. He thinks, for a moment, that might have been the first time he left Ronan to Gansey’s care.

~~~~

The third time that Blue sees him, it’s because she’s doing her homework in one of her favorite spots in Henrietta - a cafe that double at night as a homeless shelter. It’s skeezy enough that no one under the age of twenty-five is ever there except Blue, and weird enough that it appeals to her aesthetic. The owner is friends with Maura, they’re clients, so she occasionally gives Blue a free drink in exchange for Blue sitting in the window and trying to prove that this place isn’t just for the transient population of western Virginia. 

Declan sits down next to her, a cup of coffee in hand. “Hey,” he says, gently, and she looks up and blinks owlishly up at him. It’s so completely strange to see him sitting there that she actually has to look around the room a minute to make sure she didn’t magically teleport into another dimension. 

He raises his eyebrows. She raises hers. “Hey,” she finally says. “Ronan’s. Not here?” she adds, perplexed. The truth is she doesn’t know. He might be here, lurking around the corner.

Declan manages to not look affronted. “You do know that occasionally people have lives outside of their families, right?” he says, calmly, taking a sip of his coffee. “Sometimes they even have intentions that have nothing to do with them.”

“People do,” Blue agrees, affably. “But you don’t,” she adds, tipping her head in his direction.

“Well,” Declan says, without hesitation, and shockingly with not a single ounce of venom in his voice, despite the fact that Blue just told him to _get a life_ , “that makes two of us.”

That comeback is better than anything that Ronan has ever said, but Declan has never looked more like him. Blue finds her respect for him growing. “Okay,” she says, “I’m doing homework, what do you want?”

“How did you know about those lug nuts?” he asks, and Blue suddenly feels less charitable about this. She does not want to talk about Orla’s prediction, because Blue does not want to talk about her family’s particular gifts. 

But Declan has the tenacity that he shares with Ronan - an inability to let things go. “Are you like your mom?” he asks, because of course he knows. The whole town knows. It’s not a secret.

“Are you like Ronan?” Blue snaps back, the nerve exposed, and Declan’s face becomes guarded. It’s so fast that Blue suddenly realizes just how vulnerable he had been only a minute before. He was going to ask something, she thinks. Something important. Something that would give Blue power over him, and she hates this, she does, because she wouldn’t abuse it but Declan doesn’t know it.

Declan thinks anyone would. Blue doesn’t have to be a psychic to know something that obvious, and it annoys her too, that she feels _bad_ about it. She doesn’t know why looking at Declan for longer than a few minutes - seconds? - just annoys her. Maybe it’s because he’s so hard to read.

Maybe it’s because he looks so much like Ronan, but she’s allowed to be attracted to him.

Or maybe she’s not allowed to be attracted to him, and that makes it worse that she is. She doesn’t like it when her hormones make decisions absent of her brain. She frowns a little. “Orla told me,” she admits, finally, hoping that maybe that will get him off her.

He frowns a little, but not in a way that makes him look disapproving, but rather in a way that makes him look confused, and then a moment later, his eyebrows ease, and his frown goes away. “Oh,” he says. “And your family is okay with that?”

Blue is affronted before she can be anything else, and she stands up. “Of course they’re _okay_ with it,” she says, angry now. “They’re my _family_ , asshole.” She picks up her things, and Declan shakes his head, and he’s opening his mouth, but Blue is already gathering her things, and she’s leaving, slamming a couple of dollars into the tip jar before she stomps out the door.

~~~~

The things is that it’s not so bad, not really, for the first year. For the first year, they spend a lot of time together, the three of them, and it’s so _easy_. Everyone thinks that the Lynch boys are a unit, although Declan knows better. He and Ronan are not the same, and he and Ronan have never been the same. The fact that Ronan likes him, the fact that they’re friends, it doesn’t mean anything in the face of their father’s plans. 

Niall drags him away to Boston, and Declan gets a crash course in how to slip a tail, and he has to fight his way out of a bad situation with a guy with a _hatchet_ , he is fucking _sixteen years old_ , and there’s an asshole who is actively trying to kill him. He goes and he comes back and he has to do _physics homework_.

He goes and he comes back and Ronan and Gansey are building an entire scale model of the Blue Ridge in the long barn with electrical wire and toilet paper rolls, and Matthew is running around them and twisting circles of ribbon over them, and Declan feels a million years older than all of them. They’re making a friendship to span time. Declan is trying to figure out how to wash blood out of a shirt before his mother sees it. 

And Niall steps in with a laugh and a shout and he’s boxing Ronan and good naturedly slapping Gansey on the back and rubbing Matt’s thick blonde curls, and exclaiming over the ridiculous thing that Gansey is convincing his favorite son to build as he pries the story of Glendower out of him. And Declan is neatly and carelessly forgotten, just like that. It’s like looking into a diorama of a life he should have lived, where his father has three sons, except that he likes all three of them.

But it’s impossible to hold this against Gansey. It’s impossible to _dislike_ Gansey. Late that night, Declan slips next to him on the porch of the house and Gansey leans against him. Ronan is already asleep, and it’s the hour where only the owls, the coyotes, and the insomniacs are awake. “Did you have fun?” Gansey asks, and Declan leans back. This is not, or maybe it doesn’t feel, like a normal thing. And still they do it, unsure, tentative in careful ways.

Declan’s fingers find the side of Gansey’s thigh, but they don’t press or do anything inappropriate. They stay there for a minute before they’re curled into a fist. “It was fine,” he says. “Boring.”

“Ronan was really jealous,” Gansey replies, and Declan wants to tell him that there’s nothing to be jealous over. “He says he’s definitely going on the next trip.”

This is something Declan does not want. As long as he keeps going, then Ronan’s childhood can continue, then Ronan’s childhood won’t be cut short by this mess his father’s invented for them. Declan can see the writing on the wall, and he knows what’s next. Niall is not an unpredictable man. 

The silence makes Gansey turn, tip his head a little. “You know, if you want-” he starts to say, but Declan cuts him off.

“Promise me you’ll keep him busy,” Declan says, suddenly, desperate. He knows how that sounds.

Gansey hears it too, because he’s slightly offended when he replies. “He’s not going to be-” he starts, but Declan panics, and turns, and takes Gansey’s face in his hands.

This close, they’re suddenly staring right at each other. The light is very dim on the porch, and Gansey’s eyes look impossibly dark. This is the first friend that Ronan has ever made outside of his family. This is the first person that Declan has ever wanted to be friends with more than anything. Gansey has magic in him, but it’s not the magic that his father and brother have. It’s a magic that Declan wants to hoard for himself. Gansey is a person that Declan wants to hoard for himself.

Gansey licks his lips. 

Declan wonders what it would be like to kiss them.

He doesn’t. 

Instead he hold on. “There’s going to be a point where I can’t be what he needs,” Declan says, but what he means is _there is going to be a point where I can’t protect him_ , because he knows. He knows that his father’s protection is, at best, flimsy, and Declan is only sixteen. Jesus and Mary and every Saint he spends every Sunday begging for help to, he is not old enough for this. “Just. Promise me.”

Gansey’s mouth is open, slightly, and he looks dazed. Confused. This is not a transparent conversation. “You’re his best friend,” he says, and there’s that jealousy, again. Gansey is right. Declan is, but it’s only for lack of options.

He lets go of Gansey’s face. “I’m so fucking tired,” he says. “I have an algebra test in the morning,” he adds. “Jesus,” he finally manages.

Gansey, bless him, doesn’t say a word. He just sits there, staring at his shoes. At some point he says, “I promise,” before he stands. “You need sleep,” he tells Declan, and Declan looks up at him. The tone of his voice says _sleep_ but the word that it sounds like he says is _help_. He offers his hand, and Declan takes it, greedy, and guilty, all at once.

~~~~

There are a lot of good things about having a family full of psychics. You never worry about forgetting the annoying things, like running out of tampons before your period, because your mom always knows when it’s about to start. Anxiety about sudden deaths or car crashes or other terrible but avoidable fates is non-existent. There is generally little to no concern about some stranger murdering you without a family member warning you to not speak to men with bowl haircuts or a mysterious scar on their left temple.

But like all good things, that’s balanced out by the really _terrible_ thing about having a family full of psychics - they always know when you fuck up, even when you don’t.

“Blue,” she hears as soon as she opens the door, fuming, her hackles up high, “you should come in here.”

Maura is filling a tumbler for Calla with something pink and toxic looking from a pitcher. Calla is casually leaning back in a chair. There isn’t so much as a tarot card between them, and Blue knows that whatever happened she’s the one in the hot seat. “I have homework,” she says, studiously, and wishes viciously that she had just gone to Monmouth. 

“How’s the sexual savant?” Calla asks, and she takes a sip of whatever pink concoction is getting them day-drunk today. 

Oh, Blue realizes. This is about Declan, except she doesn’t know why. “Everywhere I am, probably trying to track down his brother.” She presses her lips together. It’s very annoying, because it means Declan is somehow important, and she doesn’t want to think about him.

Maura tips her own glass this way and that, and the smell of the drink is like pineapple kool-aid, if such a nightmare existed. Even Kavinsky wouldn’t have dreamed that, even if he had snorted an entire mountain of cocaine, Blue is sure. He was vile and evil, but he wasn’t the devil. “He has something to sell us,” she says.

Blue wants to sputter. First off - maybe most importantly - there is nothing in the vast treasure trove of what _Declan Lynch_ sells that anyone at Fox Way, even combining their meagre family funds and selling the house, could afford. “He does not,” she counters.

“How would you know?” Maura says, coolly. “He’s just the middleman anyway,” she adds, and this is a strange and terrible conversation that is making Blue’s head spin. Before Blue can reply, her mother takes a sip. “It’s nothing all that fancy,” she adds. “You should get it,” she insists.

Blue does not know what to make of this. Calla lifts a hand, like she’s a queen. “Get to it,” she says, and Blue has literally no idea what’s going on. 

She stares at them both for a long moment. “What is it,” she finally demands, getting ready to stomp up the stairs. She wishes that she could say that they’re never this cryptic, but really, it can be a pastime for them. The past 18 years have been roughly one-third cryptic conversations between people who shared a common and unpredictable language that Blue didn’t even have a dictionary to understand.

They both look at her, and for a second Blue gets that flash, that knowledge that they know so much more than she ever could. Looking at her mom and Calla is usually this warm, soft thing, even when they’re mad or upset or sad. Even when they’re both being psychic and strange. But every once in a while looking at them is like looking at a magical, unfamiliar thing. People who will never be familiar. Blue will always be the odd man out.

Finally, Maura says, “He’ll know,” and leaves it at that, and Blue does stomp up the stairs before she calls Declan, finding his number in a pile of emergency numbers that she had been given by Gansey. She leaves a message.

Ten minutes later the phone rings, and Orla doesn’t even answer before she calls out, “Blue!” and Blue picks up. 

Declan is on the other end. “I hardly expected to hear from you,” he says, and he sounds like he’s somewhere busy. “Especially considering I saw you today.”

“My mom and Calla want me to pick up something from you. Buy something,” she says, and she’s irritated because she can’t give him more details.

There’s a long silence on the other end, and finally Declan ventures. “I’m not really doing that anymore,” he says. “And if I did that with you, Ronan would lose his mind.”

“It’s not for me. And my mom says you’ll know what it is,” Blue says, sitting hard on the floor. She feels the irritation melt away a little.

This time there’s no silence. “I’ll come pick you up, then,” he says. “In ten minutes?”

Blue sighs. “Yeah. Okay,” she agrees, and gets her things to head down. Orla peeks out from the room where she’s working, and raises her eyebrows, and Blue offers a middle finger in quick reply.

Declan does pick her up, his Volvo clean and tidy on the inside. It feels impersonal, completely and totally devoid of a personality. Blue wrinkles her nose when she sees it, and Declan actually laughs. It makes him likeable, honestly. “Sorry it’s not _orange_ ,” he says, his smile that terrible Lynch smile that makes all the girls at school weak at the knees. 

“That car should be driven into the ocean,” Blue announces, even though it’s not true and she doesn’t think it. Something about Declan makes her want to lie, and quip, and be mean. Maybe it’s because he looks like Ronan. Or maybe it’s because he clearly has literally no opinion about her, and she doesn’t like it.

“You’re probably not the only person to think so,” Declan replies, and she buckles her seat belt. He starts to drive, and they’re only about ten minutes into the ride when she realizes they’re on their way to the Barns. As if he’s reading her mind, Declan turns onto the winding highway that goes up the side of town towards Singers Falls and speaks again. “Ronan isn’t home,” he says. “He’s sitting sullenly on the floor of the library because Adam is working.”

“Does it bother you?” Blue asks.

“Why would it bother me?” Declan replies. “They both know what they’re getting into, now,” he clarifies, and Blue finds this makes her like him, suddenly. 

The Barns are different from the last time that Blue was out here. Ronan still doesn’t really like to leave, and it’s starting to look less like a house that belongs to a family and more like him; beautiful and strange, forbidding and warm on the inside. 

Declan parks the car near one of the barns, a small and beaten looking one, and reaches into the backseat and pulls out-

“Is that a mouse?” Blue asks, confused. It is a mouse, in a small plastic terrarium with a red top.

Declan looks at Blue and his smile is funny for a moment, like he’s trying not to, or if he’s not sure about the emotion attached to it. “You’ll get it in a second,” he says, and he opens the door.

A second later Ronan’s orphan - _Opal_ , Blue remembers, recently named - comes racing out from behind the barn, skittering on her hooves. She looks like she’s been half-tamed and is still half-feral, a skirt flapping with mud on her hairy legs, wearing one of Ronan’s henleys and a pair of underwear on her head. She screeches when she sees Blue, and Declan immediately sets the cage down, and Opal prances to a stop in the most delicate fashion. She looks like a mythical creature. She squats down to look at the mouse, and then she looks back up at Declan.

“I found it,” Declan says, “in my house,” he adds, and Blue knows that’s a lie. She’s never been to Declan’s home in DC, but she thinks it must be as antiseptic and impersonal as his car, and no mouse would dare to find its way in. Opal stares at the mouse, and then up at Declan. He nudges her just a little, his hand in her hair like she’s a precious little girl and not this strange creature that Ronan dreamed up. “Can you go find a place to let it go?”

Opal opens the top of the cage and takes the mouse, carefully as anything, and then skitters away. Blue watches her go. “Do you think she’ll really let it go?” she asks, as Declan doesn’t linger and heads to the barn.

“Who knows,” he says, unlocking the barn and opening the door. “She might eat the thing, for all I know.”

Blue looks over at her retreating form. She is so much of Ronan, and so much of his fears and nightmares and dreams all at once, and she thinks it speaks volumes that Declan gives her something and doesn’t know what she’ll do with it. 

Then the door is open and the barn is dusty and full of junk. Piles of old toys, heaps of paper and tangled Christmas lights and broken heaps of strangely colored paintings and damaged boxes full of cheap looking jewelry. Declan starts to dig through it, and Blue watches him. “Can I help you?”

“You better not touch any of this,” Declan says, stepping over some of it, and digging a box out from under another box. A toy falls over and it springs to life, and Blue screams, jumping in surprise. It’s a creepy looking doll, and it announces that it loves her, and Declan is moving so fast that at the same time it launches itself at her, he’s slamming a broken tennis racket at it. It tangles in the wires and hits the wall. 

They’re both staring at it, and Blue stares in horror at Declan for a moment, and then a moment later they’re both laughing, breathing hard. “Sorry,” Declan wheezes, “I thought it was dead by now, that thing,” he laughs, hard, and harder, and Blue thinks he’s never looked so young or so handsome as he does when he suddenly looks like he’s a real person.

Blue smiles a little, and then nudges the dead looking thing with her toe. “Who dreamed this?” she asks.

Declan stops laughing so suddenly it’s like lightning struck between them. “Dad,” he says. “All of this is dad, except-” he starts, and opens the box. Inside is just one thing; an elephant, made of some strange black wood. 

The thing is that Blue’s seen it before. It used to sit in Persephone’s room, and then one day it was gone. Blue had asked her where it went, and Persephone hadn’t answered, not really. Not about the elephant. She said something else. They went and made pie, and Blue had forgotten about it.

Now it’s sitting in Declan’s hands, and it makes Blue’s breathing catch, it makes her reach out to take it. They stand there, and Declan doesn’t say a word. “How,” she starts, but stops. She doesn’t know how, but she knows how, and she thinks that this is the worst part of being the only person in her family who doesn’t know she’s about to be hit by a mack truck.

~~~~~

They are three young princes of Virginia, the three of them, dressed in Aglionby suit jackets; untouchable and feral. Gansey drags them around the county: Declan drives, Ronan laughs, and it’s miracles on miracles. For once Declan feels like the world is _his_ , and he’s not just holding it in place for his father’s mischief or his brother’s delight.

Ronan’s magic is potent, God knows, but Gansey’s magic is intoxicating in how normal it is. He smiles and Declan feels a wave of hope, he laughs and Declan has to laugh too. 

The summer ends slowly in this part of Virginia, and it’s hot enough that they’re all at the falls on Columbus Day, shedding their skin in the heat of the sun and slipping into the cold water of the pool at the base. The other Aglionby boys are suffocating in the regimented school swimming pool, but Gansey is in the presence of the rarest of beasts: locals who will show him the most secret things that the Shenandoah has to offer.

Ronan is practicing for an upcoming competition, which is scaring every bird in a ten mile radius away, but the falls are burbling and cutting through the sound, and Declan is smiling over at Gansey, who looks like some kind of young hero that Homer would have written an ode about. He reaches over and picks a tick off his arm, and Gansey looks at him with puzzlement, then a sigh. “Thanks,” he says, and Declan can just hear him over the noise of Ronan’s practice. “Does he always do this?”

Declan laughs. “At least he’s not Matthew. There isn’t an instrument on this planet that Matthew can’t mangle.” 

Gansey frowns a little, looking over at Ronan, who is working his way through _An Mhaighdean Mhara_ with the intention of someone who is aiming to win. “He’s not...mangling it?” Gansey asks, and Declan laughs again.

“He’s not,” he affirms. “He’s taking his time to figure out the pacing and the fingering. Here,” he says, taking Gansey’s hand. Declan’s instrument is not the flute, but he, like Ronan, knows the basics of every instrument in their father’s arsenal. As Ronan looks intent, his fingers matching the notes in his memory at half time, sometimes taking longer to figure out when the fingering gets challenging, Declan presses Gansey’s fingers to his own wrist in the shape of the flute.

Gansey looks at this in wonder as Declan matches Ronan’s fingers, and then Ronan takes a pause to close his eyes, and Declan whispers. “At full speed, it would go something like this,” he says, and he moves Gansey’s hand.

Ronan opens his eyes then. “What are you fucking doing?” he asks, staring. “Seriously, you think you could play this better than me?” he accuses, and barges in between Declan and Gansey.

Declan moves smoothly. “You know I can,” he says, and that’s partly true - on the fiddle, he absolutely can. On the flute, unlikely. But he’s a braggart, like their father. 

Gansey looks amused as Ronan is half on him. “Hey,” he argues, “he was teaching me something.”

“Ask for his advice when you need to pick up a girl,” Ronan scoffs back, and Declan pushes him, and a moment later the flute is on the ground and they, the three of them, are pushing each other into the water and laughing. 

That was the scene every day as the summer dwindles away, the three of them slicking their skins against each other, boys as boyish as can be.

~~~~

The drive back should be even more quiet, but Blue blows that about a half a mile outside the Barns, Persephone’s elephant heavy in her lap. “It sucks,” she says. “Being the only person in your family who can’t do what the rest can. Who isn’t magical.”

Declan snorts. “I know,” he says.

Blue speaks before she thinks. “You can’t possibly _know_ -” she starts, and then she remembers. Oh. Actually. 

It’s just that Declan is handsome, and rich, and smart. He’s charming. It’s easy to forget that in the Lynch family, it’s not Ronan who is the black sheep, surly and impolite and crass. It’s Declan, with his easy smiles and his easy laugh and his easier manner. All of that artifice is for show, it’s all to disguise the boring, pragmatic man below. 

He is perfectly still now, as if he’s deciding if he’s going to snarl or accept this, and _judge_ Blue, and she can’t bear it. “I guess you can know,” she admits, finally. She holds the elephant in both hands. “I guess you’re the only one who does.”

Declan’s shoulders relax, and Blue remembers he has the Lynch temper too, if his fights with Ronan are anything to go by. She thinks that maybe for once she might deserve to be yelled at for her mouth going faster than her brain. 

But he doesn’t yell. “You grow up and you know you’ll never be like them, and you think that’s okay. The rest of the world is like you,” he says, instead.

“But you’re there in the rest of the world, and they’re all-”

“Boring.”

“Shallow.”

“Annoying.”

“Irritating.”

“Worthless,” Declan finishes. Blue’s mouth opens, but Declan keeps talking. “But you don’t have a choice. That’s what you’re made for. And you wonder if you’re worthless, too.”

Except Blue doesn’t know that feeling. She realizes, suddenly, how lucky she is. She may not be psychic, but her mother never once made her feel worthless. Ronan is a creature of ego, and she would have never thought he came from a family where worthless was even in their vocabulary. Blue looks at Persephone’s elephant. “You just want to be like them,” she adds.

“I don’t think I wanted that,” Declan says. “I wanted them to be like me.” He goes quiet. “I’ve never told anyone that.”

There are potent things in those kinds of secrets. “You know that the entire county’s female population would drink lava to have you look at them,” she says, because this pity party is pathetic and it absolutely has to stop. That, and the fact that she holds, in her possession, a secret belonging to _Declan Lynch_ , secret kingpin of the great Commonwealth of Virginia, makes her stomach crunch uncomfortably at the same time that her heart does this strange flutter.

“I know,” Declan says with a smirk. “I use it to my advantage.”

“You’re a pig,” Blue replies, finally comfortable again. She does not like that she might have to admit her attraction to _Declan Lynch_ and her sympathy for his sad problems. This is better.

“I never leave a girl unsatisfied. Can Dick say the same?” he asks her.

She would throw something at his head for that, except he’s driving and all she has is a precious possession of Persephone’s. “He is very-”

“Eager?” Declan ventures.

“We’re not discussing this,” Blue snaps. “God, you really are a Lynch.”

“Yes, to my great distress,” Declan says cheerily, and turns onto the main street in Henrietta. “Do you want me to take you home?”

She does, and so he does, driving her right up to Fox Way, and he stops the car. “Should I pay you?” she asks, holding up the elephant.

“No,” he replies. “That was me just holding onto it. For safekeeping.” He looks up, and over at the door. One of Blue’s cousins is sitting on the porch and staring at them, intently. Declan leans over. “Hey,” he says, taking her hand. His touch is warm, but not sweaty or slippery or weird. He holds her entire hand like it’s something precious. “Listen. If you ever want to talk about-”

She knows what he’s about to say, and she wants to say _no, absolutely not, no way_ , but she can’t. She doesn’t. Because from anyone else it would be just rote words, stupid and infuriating and pointless. From Declan, it’s from the one person who she might actually think wants to hear.

“Okay,” she says quickly, and slips out the door. 

Maura is waiting in the living room when Blue comes in. “Ah,” she says, looking at it. “I see.”

“You could have warned me,” Blue snaps. She sets the elephant down.

Maura is no fool. She reaches her hand out, and Blue finds her way to her mother’s side, and then her head is on Maura’s lap and Maura is stroking her hair, her fingers managing to find the only pathways that miss the tangling snares of the barrettes. “You needed to go without warning. Otherwise you would have missed what’s right in front of you.”

Declan, Blue thinks, and she closes her eyes. Her mother means Declan Lynch. 

~~~~

It’s late, later than usual, when Declan gets back with his father from Boston, irritated, exhausted. Colin Greenmantle - a waste of human space, as far as Declan is concerned, even though he’s never laid eyes on him - spent quite a bit of time snarling at Niall about the Greywaren.

Declan hates the word. He hates it because his father didn’t pluck it out of thin air, but got it from somewhere, and because it means something to Declan. It means Ronan. Declan fought, slightly, but his father was in a foul mood over a loss of a deal, and it made their fight electric and bitter.

They’re back then, and Declan sees that stupid car of Gansey’s, orange and absurd, sitting in the grassy flat in front of the house, and his heart lightens just a little bit, despite it all. He gets out of the car, and his father yelps. “Hey,” he yells. “Don’t be ungrateful.”

Declan turns and gives him a scathing look, and grumbles as he goes up the stairs, and he sees Gansey sitting outside of Ronan’s bedroom, his glasses reflecting the dim light of the bathroom at the end of the hall.

“You’re back late,” he says.

“Ronan asleep?” he asks, and Gansey nods. Declan tips his head a little, and they both head to Declan’s room. His room is a practical space in a house that lives on impracticalities. Declan knows for a fact that they’re not attached to any sewer line, that they don’t have to pay bills, that the house is off the grid not because of any belief in the ills of society, but because it’s how his father dreamed it. 

His room is decorated with very little, but Gansey doesn’t comment on it. He sits on Declan’s bed as Declan shoulders off his shirt, shucks his trousers, finds a pair of sweats and slips them on. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, running his hand through his curls. He feels like his hair is probably a mess. 

“No,” Gansey says, “Sometimes I-”

“I know,” Declan interrupts, and he sits next to Gansey, crossing his legs and bringing them up. He’s so tired. “Trust me, I know. I wish I could sleep like Ronan.”

Gansey smiles a little. “Yeah, but then how would we have these little chats to ourselves?” he asks, and Declan smiles back, and he folds over, moving until he’s lying, curled up, on his bed, his head against Gansey’s leg. “You should get some sleep,” Gansey says softly, and his hand is in Declan’s curls, tugging at them absently.

“I fucking hate my dad,” he says. This is the first time he’s dared to utter it. “If you fucking knew half of it-” he starts, but he doesn’t finish. He’s too damned loyal to spill the worst of Niall’s secrets. 

Gansey doesn’t say anything at first. He just sits there, silent. “I wish I had a family like yours,” he says. “My family, they’re fine. They love me. They let me do whatever I like.”

Declan wants to tell him to count his blessings, but he doesn’t. Instead he focuses on the way Gansey’s fingers brush against his scalp, on the shivers of pleasure that sends skittering over his skin. Gansey isn’t finished, though. “But my mom is so tangled in every next re-election. My dad doesn’t notice anything.”

Declan wants so badly to take Gansey’s hand, to press it to his mouth. He doesn’t do that. “One day, we should have our own family,” he laughs with a snort. 

Gansey’s laugh is soft, and timid, and easy. “You should get some sleep,” he repeats.

“Will you stay here?” Declan asks, and he isn’t sure if he feels like a small child or if he feels like he’s trying to extend the smallest bough of affection. 

Gansey’s hand doesn’t move away from Declain’s hair. “Yeah,” he says, his accent softening in the darkness. “I’ll stay here.”

He does stay, and when Declan wakes up, Gansey is still there, his body against the headboard, his legs framing Declan’s body. He doesn’t know how they got in this position, and he finds that he doesn’t care. He stays there, quiet, even though Gansey is probably awake. He wants to stay here forever, with someone who loves him.

~~~~

Blue is with Gansey the next day when she finally asks. “What do you think of Declan?”

“Lynch?” Gansey asks.

“How many Declans do you know?” Blue asks, because that’s a stupid question. 

Gansey has the wherewithal to blush as they sit against each other in the Pig, staring out at the wide valley that nestles Henrietta. He clears his throat. “I like him,” he says.

“Did you know he feels-” she starts, and realizes that this is as much about how she feels, and how much she wants Gansey to understand. 

Gansey picks up that something is wrong, but he doesn’t pick it up right away. “Have you been spending time with him?”

“Did you know that he feels like an outsider?” she asks, angry suddenly.

Gansey is quiet, then. He moves away, and Blue feels that pain, that tugging horror every time they’re together but not touching, and she hates and loves that she feels it all at once. He stays quiet, unable to speak, and the finally he mutters. “Yes. I know.”

She stays still as Gansey speaks. As Gansey tells her about their friendship, before. She stays quiet and realizes, still, that Gansey and Declan have a more complicated relationship than either of them let on.

“Start the car,” she says.

Gansey looks surprised, but he obeys with the alacrity of someone who has been on the sharp side of Blue’s temper. “Jane,” he starts.

“Don’t talk,” she says. “You managed to talk your way into the grave,” and Gansey gives her a look, because it’s the longest running joke of all time, and Blue puts the cherry on top, “ _twice_ , and I’m done with all this talk. It’s time for action.”

“Where are we going?” he asks, with a sigh. “My queen,” he adds sardonically.

“You know very well where we’re going,” she tells him, and Gansey laughs, and turns the car as they get into town, right to where the only nice hotel in town is.

~~~~

Gansey does not hold Declan’s hand through it. Gansey’s hand is firmly in his own as they stand in their best suits, and it’s brilliant and sunny out. Declan is staring at the coffin, and not at Ronan, whose face has been a death mask since he found their father out in the driveway. Their mother is there, yawning, and Declan is worried she’ll collapse in the middle of the funeral.

Matthew is crying noisily, and if anyone didn’t know him they might think that it was a show. 

Gansey also does not go to the will reading, but he’s there outside the lawyer’s office, waiting in the god-forsaken car. Declan is the executor, that’s the first thing, and everyone looks at Aurora, who yawns again. And then they read the will.

The response is automatic. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Ronan yelps, and he stands so fast his chair turns. “We’re getting kicked out of our own fucking house?”

“Why didn’t dad want us to live there?” Matthew wonders.

“This can’t possibly _stand_ ,” Ronan yells, “Mom!”

Aurora yawns. “Darling,” she says, “My darling boy,” she tries, but she can’t get more out. She hasn’t been able to get more than that out for a day or so. Declan knows she can’t last much longer. 

Ronan sees he won’t get any help from that quarter, and he turns. “Declan. You have to stop this.”

Declan looks at the lawyer, and he hates his father, who is cold in the ground with his face bashed in, and he thinks that they’re all halfway in the coffin. Declan can feel the fingers of the trap their father laid for them closing, and he can’t breathe, suddenly. He thinks of his brothers at the Barns when Greenmantle’s assassin comes to finish the job.

He thinks of his mother, who will fall asleep at any moment.

He thinks of Ronan, in pain.

He thinks and thinks and shakes his head. “That’s the will, Ronan,” he says, and he feels like his stomach is being taken apart, piece by piece. There were medieval tortures that he woud prefer to this.

Ronan’s temper has never been stable. Declan ducks the first punch, but the second one clips his cheek, and his muscle memory goes, and they’re brawling. Matthew is yelling, and Aurora is whimpering, and the lawyer is telling them to calm down, and Ronan gives Declan a fat lip and Declan gives Ronan a black eye and the spine of their friendship breaks over the hump of the will.

Ronan snatches the keys to their father’s car, and storms out. Declan looks over at Matthew, who looks lost, and their mother, who looks even more lost. “I think,” she says, “I should sleep.”

Declan closes his eyes, but when he opens them the world is still a mess. He asks the lawyer to arrange a pair of taxis, and he goes outside to find Gansey, looking like he was just run over by an entire herd of cows staring at the door.

“What happened?” Gansey asks, and Declan shakes his head. “Are you okay?”

“He’s furious,” Declan says. Ronan’s temper isn’t just volatile, but he keeps grudges like a dog with a rope. “Gansey,” Declan says, and Gansey looks back at him. They stand there and look at each other for a moment, and Declan realizes how much he loves him, and how much he’s about to give up. “You should go find him,” Declan finally says, and his heart squeezes.

Gansey knows what that means. He knows that this means that he has been given away, that he’s been given up. “I don’t want to take sides,” he says, desperately.

“He’ll make you,” Declan says.

“I don’t want to leave you alone, too.” Gansey replies, and his voice cracks. “Declan-”

Declan is an accomplished liar. His father trained him for this, for every second of it. He smiles, bright, with just a touch of mourning, but for his father, he tells himself. Gansey sways. “I won’t be alone. I have Matthew. It’s okay,” he says, and he builds the facade up, brick by brick. Jesus, but he aches all over, and the smile, that hurts the most.

Gansey moves as if to hug him, but then does an awkward shake of Declan’s hand, and he turns to leave.

~~~~~

They get to the hotel and when they knock on Declan’s door, he opens it. He does not look done up. He looks like he just showered, his curly hair a mess, his sweats low on his hips. “Gansey?” he says, puzzled. “Blue?” he adds, and turns. “Do you...want to come in?” he asks, as if he’s not sure if that’s what they want.

Blue storms in, and Gansey apologizes, but he’s smiling. “Gansey told me everything,” she announces, “and you’re both idiots,” she states.

Declan looks puzzled. “Everything about what?”

“You love him,” she announces. “And he loves you,” she clarifies, and Gansey stares this time.

“What are you talking about?” Gansey yelps, and Declan’s jaw drops. “I didn’t say that, Declan, I didn’t-”

“Oh, shut up,” Blue says. “You don’t know anything,” she adds a moment later. “He told me what you were like, before,” she adds. “When he first got here. He told me what you did for Ronan, and-”

“Blue,” Declan tries, but he is no match for Ronan, and so he can’t hope for anything against Blue.

She railroads him, “-and you are both idiots,” she finishes. She raises her head. “I get it. You wanted so badly to be part of your family you were willing to throw whatever you could to make it stick,” she says. He’s about to protest again, but she stops him. “ _I get it_. No one else could get it, but I do.”

Declan goes still. “What do you want to do about it?” Declan asks, finally.

Blue softens, then. “Just kiss him,” she says. “And then kiss me.”

"I slept with your cousin," Declan reminds her, gently. 

"Nobody's perfect," Blue submits, and then adds, "but never bring that up again."

Declan seems out of excuses, because his mouth opens, and closes, as if he's a particularly stupid fish and the hook is lodged in his cheek. He looks at Gansey, and his entire reputation as a smooth motherfucker crumbles before Blue’s eyes because he looks nervous, but Gansey practically jumps him to kiss him, his hands in Declan’s hair, and then Declan is responding with a kiss of his own, and Jesus and every single saint that Declan prays to, it’s hot. Blue takes a breath, and Declan takes a step back, and he laughs, and turns, and kisses Blue.

Blue has only had two kisses her whole life long, and both were with dead boys. This kiss is nothing like it; it takes her breath away with shock. “Oh,” she says. “That’s what it’s like without magic,” she tells them, and then Gansey is laughing and Declan is kissing them both, and every second is brilliant, like lights striking behind her eyes.

~~~~

“Okay,” Blue says, stretching out in Declan’s bed. Declan is wedged between Gansey on one side, and Blue on the other side, and his heart can’t stop beating, but for once it’s not with terror. They slept. They woke up. “Who is going to tell Ronan?” she continues.

Declan shakes his head. “I took the one for the team already,” he says. “It’s time for someone else to do damage to my family.”

Gansey’s legs tangle with his, and Blue’s arm is over his hips, and he feels awake for the first time in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song Shrike, by Hozier.


End file.
